Internet Sites
Updated: March 19,
2015 (Added a link to Changi POW Art)
Sites containing information concerning
POWs of the Japanese:
- American Battle Monuments
Commission As of August 2014, ABMC has revised this page and made it
a bit more difficult to use. To search for a POW of the Japanese, look
at the upper right on the main page where there are three small lines - click
on "Looking to search ABMC burials?". On the next page, "Search ABMC
Burials and Memorializations", complete the "Last Name" and "First Name" boxes
and check the box beside "World War II" and provide any other information you
have. After you have added all the information, click on the "Search"
button at the bottom of the list. A list of persons meeting the criteria
you provided will be displayed in the large box at the right. Click on a
last name to see the ABMC page for that person's burial or memorial
information.
- American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor
Memorial Society (formerly named "Descendants
Group, an Auxiliary of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor")
This organization was created at the request of the American Defenders of
Bataan and Corregidor before that organization ceased to exist in June 2009.
- American Ex-Prisoners of War Organization
This site contains a wide variety of information that can be of assistance to
former POWS and to their family members. See the main page of
information about membership and services available.
- Asiatic Fleet
This link goes to a complete "Order of Battle" for the United States Asiatic
Fleet.
- Bataan
Commemorative Research Project This excellent site by the Proviso East
High School, IL gives information about the 192nd Tank Battalion including rosters
of members of that unit.
- Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Foundation
of New Mexico, Inc. This site and the memorial (which was
dedicated on April 7, 2002) are in honor of the men of the 200th and 515th CA
(AA) Regiments. The site includes a list of the men in those two
regiments.
- Bataan Survivor This
web site tells the story of Alf R. Larson as compiled by Rick
Peterson. Alf was in the 27th Material Squadron, 20th Air Base Group.
He fought on Bataan, was in the Bataan Death March, was in Camp O'Donnell,
Clark Field Detail, and Bilibid before going to Japan on the Noto Maru.
Then he was in Nagoya #6B (Nomachi) at Takaoka, Japan where he was liberated.
-
Battling Bastards of Bataan The home page of this site contains a
photo of the Camp O'Donnell Memorial Monument in Capas, Tarlac, PI.
-
Burma Thailand Railway This
site includes information about the Burma Thailand Railway (also known as the
Thailand-Burma Railway, the Burma Railway or the Death Railway). Look in
the left column and click on "Camp Lists" to get a complete list of POW camps
along the 415-Km route of the railway. See
Thailand Burma Railway for another
site on this subject. Roger Mansell's "Center for Research, Allied POWs
under the Japanese" (listed after this) also has a list of of the POW camps on
the railway - see his
Death Railway link.
- Center
for Research, Allied POWs under the Japanese Before he passed away
on October 25, 2010, Roger Mansell asked Wes Injerd to keep this web site
going. Wes is doing a great job of keeping it going as Roger would want.
This site has
information related to Japanese POW Camps throughout the Far East - including photos and links to other web
pages. To get a complete list of POW Camps, begin your visit to this
site on the main page by clicking on "POW Camp List with LINKS" in the third
line of the right column.
Then check out other parts of this site as your interests take you.
Note: Wes has moved his own web site into
this site and it can be seen by going to the list of POW Camps and then to
"Fukuoka Base Camp" or click on this link -
Wes
- Changi POW Art This site
contains many paintings by British POW Des Bettany. The site has been
developed by his family as a tribute to the man. I think it also gives a
pictorial history of the defense of Malaya as well as POW life in Changi POW
Camp and the liberation.
- China Marines - Fourth
Marines Band Follow the links close to the bottom on the main page
for much more information. This site complements the site below labeled
"Fourth Marine Regiment."
- C.O.F.E.P.O.W. The
initials stand for "Children (& families) of Far East Prisoners of War."
This site is an excellent resource for information concerning British,
Australian, New Zealand and Dutch POWs of the Japanese. Note also the "FEPOW
Community" and "Researching FEPOW History" sites listed below.
-
Corregidor
This site has much information about Corregidor and the related island forts
involved in the defensive plan for Manila Bay. Scroll down the "Units &
Personnel" page to find links to rosters of most of the units of the Harbor
Defenses. Use the links in the horizontal bar close to the top of the
page to navigate to other pages of this site.
- FEPOW Community
This British site, and the links it provides, will be of assistance to many
people searching for information about a British, Australian, New Zealand or
Netherlands POW of the Japanese. Note also the "C.O.F.E.P.O.W." site
listed above and the "Researching FEPOW History" site listed below.
- Fourth Marine Regiment
Use this site for information about the 4th Marines from before World War II,
to Corregidor and through their time as POWs.
- Fukuoka #17
This excellent web site was started in 2002 as a Lewiston, Idaho school project.
It has been expanded into a large and very informative web site by Linda Dahl.
Linda was the school librarian, but has now moved on to City Librarian and
continues to "grow" the web site as a labor of love. The site includes a roster of POWs at
Fukuoka #17 (Omuta).
-
Index to Roper Research Materials Anyone planning a trip to the National Archives
should review Dick Roper's "List of Records in Numerical Order" and his
"Diaries, Official Record & Press Releases" before leaving home. You can
make notes about the Box Numbers that contain information you want to see.
This should make your visit to the National Archives more efficient and more
productive.
-
Manila American
Cemetery and Memorial This site includes photos and brief video of
the Manila American Cemetery as well as driving directions (in case you will
be in the Manila area). It also has links is to a cemetery booklet (".pdf" files,
with or without photos). This booklet is worth the download time - it includes a complete description of the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial
including photos, drawings and the text of inscriptions.
- Mark Kelso's Oryoku Maru Web Site This
site is temporarily offline - a new link will be posted as soon as Mark has it
ready. Mark Kelso constructed this page as a memorial to his Grandfather, Lt. Walter
A. Kelso, Jr. It contains very detailed descriptions of the voyage that
began at Manila on December 13, 1944 when 1,619 POWs were loaded into the
cargo holds of the Oryoku Maru and ended at Moji, Kyushu, Japan on January 30,
1945 when about 400 survivors were unloaded from the holds of the Brazil Maru.
What happened during that series of voyages is the also subject of several
books listed in the "Publications" page of this web site.
-
Mukden Prisoner Of War Remembrance
Society (MPOWRS)
This relatively new site (as of June 2008) is devoted to POWs
that were in camps in the Mukden area. It has information about the new
Mukden Allied Prisoners of War Camp Memorial Museum. As of June 2008, this
site is still being developed, so you may want to check back to see new
additions.
-
Museum of Japanese Merchant
Ships This Japanese language site contains photographs and paintings of
a number of Japanese
merchant ships that were sunk. This index page will take you to lists of ships that were
lost in a particular year. In the center of each line you will see a
two-digit number in the midst of the Japanese characters. The line with
"16" in it leads to a page with ships lost in 1941. Likewise, "17" is
for 1942, "18" is for 1943, "19" is for 1944 and "20" is for 1945. The
entries for "18" (1943) and "19" (1944) are subdivided. "1-6"
and "7-12" indicate the first and last six months of 1943. Similarly, "19"
(1944) is divided into quarters. By knowing when a ship was lost, you can find the
image. For instance, the Oryoku Maru was attacked on December 14 and
15, 1944. Click the line containing "19" and "10-12" on the
index page to get a page with "thumbnail" photos of ships lost in Oct-Dec, 1944.
The photos have a caption with a four-digit number giving the month and day the ship
was lost. Click the caption with "1214" to get the painting of the Oryoku Maru.
The URL address will also display the ship's name but it may be misspelled in
English. If you want to read the
Japanese wording, several free on-line translators can give a very
rough translation. I think it may be best to leave the translation to
the experts.
-
National Archives (NARA) Access to the Archival Database (AAD)
This link goes directly to the "Fielded Search" page for the World War II
Prisoners of War Data File. Click the following link for information that is designed to assist you in
navigating this site. It may help to make a copy of this
information to use when you search on the NARA AAD site.
NARA Information
In November 2006, NARA posted another database that is supplementary to their
World War II Prisoners of War Data File. This database was developed by
a team of volunteers, each of whom is a descendant of a POW of the Japanese,
working on behalf of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor. It
provides information about the military unit of POWs prior to their surrender
and gives additional information about POW camps when that information was
available. Click on
Military Units to see the "Fielded Search" page for this database.
It is in the same format as the World War II Prisoners of War Data File, so
the same instructions apply.
To get the main AAD page so you can search a different file, click this link -
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/index.jsp.
-
National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, MO
Use this site to obtain military records of a veteran or to obtain awards and
decorations (medals). Look in the left column of the main page under
"Federal Records" and click on "Military Personnel Records". The
"Military Personnel Records" page gives the information you need ncluding
information about the July 12, 1973 fire that destroyed many military records
(including my Father's records).
-
New Zealand Military
History This site may be of assistance to people searching for
information about New Zealand POWs of the Japanese.
-
North China Marines
This site has a lot of
information for anyone interested in the "North China Marines."
- POW Research Network Japan This site was set up to provide
information about POW Camps in
Japan and about individual POWs within those camps. Before searching
this site for information about an individual POW or about a specific camp, it
is a good idea to read "About POW R.N.J." - click on the left item in the row
of links near the top of the main page. To search for a POW that died
while in a POW camp in Japan, start on the main page and click on
"Researches". On the next page, click on "List of Deceased POWs" in the
left column. On the next page, click on "List by camp" in the left
column. Locate the correct camp and then click on "Open" in the right
column. The file is large and the printing is small, but
there is a magnifying feature in the tool bar that will allow you to increase the
size to make easy reading.
- POWs of the
Japanese
Jim Erickson is constructing this site. Already it has much valuable
information about the Hellships, including rosters, and Jim will be adding
more. For those that do not know Jim Erickson, I will just say that he
does outstanding research and you can rely on the information he posts.
- Researching FEPOW
History This site is located in the UK and has the aim of organizing
bi-annual conferences to aid those who are researching the experiences of
ex-Far Eastern prisoners of war or internees. The links contained on
this site will help persons looking for information concerning UK POWs of the
Japanese. Note also the "C.O.F.E.P.O.W." and "FEPOW Community" sites
listed above.
- Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society
This site has information on POW Camps on Taiwan (Formosa).
- Thailand Burma Railway - see "Burma Thailand Railway" above.
- The Fall of the
Philippines This site contains the text of "The Fall of the
Philippines" by Louis Morton. It is part of a series of books produced
by the U.S. Army Center of Military History. After you enter this site,
you can move to the portion of interest to you by clicking on a chapter or a
section within a chapter.
- US-Japan Dialogue on POWs
This bilingual website is an effort to recognize
the sacrifice of American POWs captured by the Japanese military during WWII.
It also seeks to promote dialogue between people of the United States and
Japan on related issues.
-
Wes Injerd's Web Site
on POW Camps in Japan Wes Injerd's site has been moved to be
included in Roger Mansell's site, "Center for Research, Allied POWs under the
Japanese", above. Wes' site has a vast amount of information about POW Camps in Japan plus links to
other related information. Wes recently (February 3, 2003) informed me
that Robert S. LaForte has donated his entire collection of over 800 volumes
and over 200 interviews of POWs of Japan to the University of North Texas
Archives.